Various computer applications are used to create and edit electronic content for use on computers and other electronic devices. Such content creation applications typically provide a canvas area which is used to display for editing purposes the positions and sometimes movements and interactivity of objects that are included in electronic content being created. For example, a content creator may develop interactive electronic content that includes buttons, shapes, graphics, animations, videos, and other objects by positioning and editing the appearance of such objects on a canvas area of a content creation application.
Some types of objects and object parts that are included in content being developed cannot be edited on a canvas area. For example, the functionality of a button object may be specified separately from the appearance of the button, which is displayed on the canvas. Moreover, some objects or object parts cannot be edited directly within the content creation application at all. For example, a content application may allow the inclusion of bitmap and vector graphics but provide no direct mechanism or limited features for editing such graphics from within the content creation application. When a content creator desires to edit such graphics, a separate application must generally be used. Some content creation applications allow a creator to launch separate editing applications from within the content creation application. However, generally, existing methods for such “launch editing” can be burdensome and confusing to content creators. Existing applications typically require the content creator to know which objects and/or object parts can be edited by a specific editing application and then to identify those specific parts. This can be particularly burdensome and problematic in circumstances involving complicated content such as content that involves objects with multiple parts, content with a layer having multiple objects, and content having multiple layers. The complexity can result in, among other things, data being lost when a content creator uses a launch editing feature.
Additionally, existing mechanisms for launch editing are typically tailored to individual editing applications. Because each editing application has its own data formatting techniques, launch editing can further result in loss of data where an editing application is inadvertently sent data that is incompatible with its own data formatting. Generally, existing content creation applications fail to provide flexibility with respect to launch editing and are burdensome with respect to requiring that content creators manually select object data that is sent for editing.